Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti on Monday asked the police to “review cases of youth booked on charges of stone-throwing between 2008 and 2014”.
“Youth who took to the wrong path inadvertently have to be given an opportunity to restart their lives as productive citizens so that they can rebuild their careers,” Ms. Mufti said, while chairing a high-level meeting on reforms in J&K’s prisons.
She asked the State Home department and the police “to decide on merits how many such cases can be withdrawn.” In an apparent move to release violent protesters ahead of Eid, Ms. Mufti has sought a report on nine youth, presently lodged in various jails in cases pertaining to stone-throwing, within two days.
Thirty people were being held under the stringent Public Safety Act (PSA) in J&K, for being associated with separatist groups, stone-throwing and militancy in the Valley.
According to the Home Department figures, 799 persons who were arrested in 2015 in such cases have been released. Only one was being detained under the Public Safety Act (PSA).
Both the factions of the Hurriyat, however, disputed the State government’s figures. A spokesman of the Hurriyat, headed by Syed Ali Geelani, alleged that “hundreds of political workers have been rounded up in the recent past.”
Separatists on Friday organised joint protests, calling for the release of all “political prisoners.”
Stone throwing in Pulwama
Violent protests broke out in south Kashmir’s Pulwama district immediately after a loud explosion triggered aerial firing by the police.
Preliminary reports suggest a tyre had burst with a loud noise, setting off the police action. The firing forced people to run for cover. Enraged locals hurled stones at the security forces for opening fire “irresponsibly.” Several tear smoke shells were fired later to disperse the stone-throwing protesters.
